


Kitchen Wizardry

by littleskywatcher



Category: Young Wizards - Diane Duane
Genre: F/M, Kitchen Fluff, Originally Posted on Tumblr, ft. the magic of chocolate chip cookies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-23
Updated: 2015-02-23
Packaged: 2018-03-14 19:16:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3422531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleskywatcher/pseuds/littleskywatcher





	Kitchen Wizardry

Nita licked the mixing spoon and paused mid-taste, thoughtful. _This cookie dough is missing something..._ She wracked her brains for a moment before rummaging through the cabinets. _Aha!_ She opened the tiny bottle of vanilla extract and inhaled, smiling at the memory of her mother in the kitchen. Sometimes her mom would open the vanilla, sniff, and decide she didn't need it after all--but she'd leave the bottle open anyway, so when Nita came home from school the entire house would smell like vanilla and whatever had been in the oven. Nita added a dash of vanilla to her mixing bowl and tried a generous fingerful of dough--perfect. Only a little wistful, she set the uncapped bottle safely out of the way and double-checked her recipe.

 _Raisins or chocolate chips?_ she asked Kit on a whim.

She felt him jump from two blocks away, startled out of an essay-writing haze. _Huh?_

_You heard me. Raisins or chocolate chips?_

He didn't even have to consider. _Chocolate chips, definitely. Why?_

She showed him an image of her mixing bowl. He sighed. _Neets, I have to finish this essay tonight..._

She didn't bother to hide her snicker. _That's what you get for spending all last weekend with your head in a Burroughs book again. Haven't you read them enough, yet?_ She snickered harder when he glared.

 _They're classics!_ he protested, and smirked. _Besides, I'm not the one who was reading fanfic until four the other morning._

Nita blushed. _You've been eavesdropping on my brains again,_ she accused. _At least_ I'm _done with my homework._

 _Believe me, I regret learning that much about what those characters do offscreen._ Kit rolled his eyes dramatically. _And I_ would _be working on homework, if_ someone _hadn't interrupted to mock me in my torment._

 _Go back to your essay, Martian boy._ Nita let the connection fade, still chuckling, and emptied the bag of chocolate chips into the bowl. After one final fingerful, she decided her dough passed muster. She put the first batch in the oven and dumped her dishes in the sink with soapy water, humming along with the radio she'd put on as background noise.

The kitchen smelled fantastic--the vanilla extract mixed with the scent of baking cookies made her mouth water. _If only I could bottle up this scent--_

A memory tugged at her attention, and she grinned. A few months ago, errantry had led her sister to a little exoplanet populated by furry, tentacled hominids who communicated almost exclusively by scent. After a bit of low-key intervention in their primary's flare pattern, Dairine had been shown to a library of sorts, where an Archivist captured the scents of the story and stored them away in a little canister of hardened air. The technique fascinated her; it was the most excited Nita had seen her in a long while, except when she was elbow-deep in simulated stellar matter. Dairi would talk about little else for nearly a week ("They have their entire history preserved in jars of _scent_ , Nita, just imagine! I mean, scent is already incredibly evocative for us, and humans have a crap sense of smell as it is..."), so Nita did a little research of her own. It wasn't too difficult, just a matter of convincing the air molecules to keep a tighter hold on the scent-causing particles than they would normally: diffusion prevention, essentially. With this in mind, she whistled for her manual.

After double-checking a few things, she leaned back against the countertop and closed her eyes, feeling the familiar listening silence build as the universe leaned in to hear her spell. She opened her eyes, gasping a little, and plucked the scent canister out of midair. Nita unscrewed the "cap" and inhaled deeply--oh good, it had worked--before closing it again. A few muttered words, a puff of inrushing air, and the canister was gone. Smiling to herself, she rescued the first batch of cookies from the oven.

She didn't have to wait long. _Oh my GOD, Neets, what_ is _that?_ Kit's groan was almost comical.

 _A scent canister. I_ said _I was making cookies._

 She felt him sniff greedily. _Bring me some,_ he ordered. _I need sustenance. And some of that amazing smell, my God._

 _I dunno_ , she teased, _I've still got more in the oven. And they smell so good--I might just eat them. All. By. Myself._ She made a point of carefully selecting a cookie and savoring the scent, biting into the warm gooeyness with exaggerated abandon. The effect was slightly lessened when she burnt the roof of her mouth, but she could practically feel Kit drooling. She chewed slowly--they really were good cookies--and pretended to ignore Kit's envious noises in the background.

He broke the connection so quickly she jumped, confused. Less than a minute later, though, a muffled clap of displaced air and the squeak-bang of the screen door announced his arrival. "That's just unfair," he complained as he dropped his computer bag on the dining room table. "Your whole house smells like heaven and I still have an essay to finish." Nita was spared having to answer as he crossed to her and buried his face in her hair. "It smells even better on you," he murmured, leaning down to press a kiss against her neck. She let herself be steered back to the counter, and he reached around her to snag a cookie off the rack.

She leaned away in mock annoyance. "Traitor. You just want me for the cookies."

Kit laughed around his mouthful of cookie. "Guilty as charged. If it's any consolation, they're delicious." She shoved at him hard enough that he almost choked on his cookie. "Okay, okay, I like you, too," he relented once he could breathe again. "You're just missing one thing, though."

She cocked an eyebrow. "Oh?"

"A 'Kiss the Cook' apron."

She snorted and pretended to throw a cookie at him. "Don't press your luck."

He chuckled and kissed her again, deeper this time. "You taste like chocolate-chip cookies," he told her.

"Don't you have an essay to work on?" she managed after a moment.

"Mmmm," he agreed absently, making her shiver as he brushed flour off her arms. "And you have cookies in the oven."

The second batch of cookies was a little crispy on the bottom.

 


End file.
